A. Focus and Willpower, the secondary Mind stats. A Master Musician can double these stats for around two hours.

Q. Can Musicians buff the Mind stat?

A. No; Dancers have a Mind buff.

Q. Isn't the Musician buff less valuable than the Dancer buff?

A. Many people find the Musician buff at least as valuable -- indeed, many would say more valuable -- because regeneration of Mind can be crucial. Also, armor encumbers Focus and Willpower, not Mind itself.

Q. What level of Musician can confer the buff?

A. Novice Musician and up. The buff depends on the Musical Mind Enhancement skill. At Novice Musician, this skill is 10, which results in a 10% increase in the relevant stats. At Music Tech 4, this skill is 75, resulting in a 75% increase. At Master Musician, this skill is 100, resulting in a 100% buff -- a doubling of Focus and Willpower.

Q. I'm a Musician. How do I confer the buff?

A. Two ways:

1. The active buff on a single target. Enter a cantina, theater, hotel, or camp. Target your listener with your mouse. Ask your listener to /listen to you -- to type /listen with you targeted. With the listener targeted, type /setperform. You should see a message indicating that you direct your message to the listener -- and the listener should see such a message from you. Begin playing. Choose a relatively high song and flourish a lot; choice of instrument may not matter, but to be safe choose a chid horn, traz, nalargon, ommni, bandfill, or mandoviol. Play for around 6 minutes -- less time if you can cram in more flourishes quickly, more time if you flourish at a more leisurely pace. After that, instruct the listener to type /stoplisten or to choose "Stop Listen" from the radial menu. At that point, the listeners secondary stats should jump up. The buff lasts up to two hours.

2. The passive buff on one or more targets. If you want to buff multiple people, you can group with them and have them all /listen while you perform. You don't need to use /setperform. The upside is that multiple people can get the buff from you at the same time. In theory, this buff was supposed to take longer than the /setp buff, but in practice it seems to take the same time.

Q. Why isn't there a message telling me that the buff is in progress while I'm playing or listening?

A. The devs are aware that players are unhappy that they can't verify that the buff is working while it's being conferred. The Musician Correspondent has asked them for improvements to this aspect of the buff, and said Correspondent is hopeful we'll see them sooner or later.

Q. Can I buff myself with music?

A. Not currently. The Musician Correspondent has raised this issue with the devs, and while the devs aren't necessarily opposed to a self-buff, there apparently are technical obstacles to implementing one. Yes, Doctors can buff themselves, but a Doctor self-buff apparently doesn't raise as many coding problems as a Musician or Dancer self-buff. Edit: more recently, the devs also suggested they had design objections to a self-buff. I am still hopeful that we'll see a self-buff some time in the future, but it will be a while, and it may not come to pass at all.

Q. Does flourishing affect the duration or power of the targeted (/setperform) buff?

A. Flourishing affects how fast you achieve maximum duration and maximum power. Flourishes will not, however, increase the maximum duration or power of the buff. In effect, flourishing cuts down the time you need to perform the targeted buff.

Q. Does flourishing affect the duration or power of the passive (grouped) buff?

A. If you don't flourish, you won't confer the buff. The more you flourish, the faster the buff is applied.

Q. Does song or instrument choice affect the duration or power of the targeted (/setperform) buff?

A. In theory, yes. As with flourishing, song or instrument choice will affect the time at which you achieve maxium power and duration with the targeted buff. If you play a higher song or instrument, the time required to buff is, in theory, shorter. In practice, many Musicians say they see no difference.

Q. Does song or instrument choice affect the duration or power of the passive (grouped) buff?

A. In theory, yes. A "higher" song or instrument supposedly speeds the rate at which the passive (grouped) buff is applied. In practice, many Musicians say they see no difference.

Q. Do "lighting effects" (Firejet, Colored Lights, etc) affect the duration or power of the targeted or passive buff?

A. No, not currently. I have asked the devs to implement such a feature, and I'm hopeful they will do so.

Q. Does instrument quality affect the duration or power of the targeted or passive buff?

A. No, not currently. Again, I have asked the devs to implement this feature; I don't know what the prospects are for implementation.

Q. If I stop playing in mid-buff, say to change instruments, does that interfere with the buff, or prevent it from "taking"? Does it matter how long I stop?

A. Stopping for a short time should not interfere with your buff. I've tested this repeatedly over the past few days, and my "main" can buff my "alt" even if the main stops playing for 30 seconds. The buff is triggered when the recipient stops listening, whether via radial, command-line, or walking out of range; it's not triggered by a cessation of the performance. That said, some players say it's safer to play continuously if possible.

Q. Precisely what is the amount of time a Master Musician must play to confer the maximum-length targeted buff (i.e., /setperform)?

A. As the answers above indicate, it supposedly varies depending on the song, instrument, and flourish amount. In practice, it seems to depend solely on flourish rate.

Q. How can I use /setperform with the nalargon or ommni box, since those most be targeted at all times?

A. The buff works with these instruments. If you're doing the /setperform buff, type /setperform (playername) to direct your performance to the player. Alternatively, you could target the listener with your mouse before you start playing; type /setperform; and then target the nala or ommni and start playing. You don't need to keep the listener targeted once you've typed /setperform. If you're doing the grouped buff, then you don't need to type /setperform at all; just play as usual.

Q. Can I switch songs while I buff?

A. Yes. The safest way to do this is with the /changemusic command, so that you don't stop.

Q. What if someone /listens for an hour or longer? Will that mess up the buff?

A. No, as long as they /stoplisten eventually.

Q. What if the listener leaves the cantina during the performance? Does that trigger the buff?

A. In theory, yes. In practice, not always. The surest way to trigger the buff is to stay in the cantina while /listening, then to type /stoplisten or choose Stop Listen from the radial menu. If you leave the cantina and the buff isn't triggered automatically, try typing /stoplisten.

Q. Does the buff work anywhere?

A. No. In theory, it works only in camps, theaters, hotels, or cantinas; "cantinas" include private homes, PA Halls, City Halls, and player cantinas. I've read unconfirmed reports of players buffing in starports, but I've been unable to do this myself. As for player-owned buildings in Player Cities, please see the next three questions.

Q. Does the buff work in player cantinas?

A. Yes.

Q. Does the buff work in player theaters?

A. Last I checked on Test Center, it did not work here -- nor did ordinary healing -- unless one performed backstage. I don't know if this has been fixed yet.

Q. Does the buff work in City Halls?

A. Apparently it does, though I myself haven't tried it yet.

Q. Can the listener /stoplisten while meditating and still get the buff?

A. No, you should not meditate while typing /stoplisten. If you are meditating while you /stoplisten, you may well prevent the buff from being applied.

Q. I can't buff! What am I doing wrong?

A. Lots of possibilities:

1. Your listener forgot to /listen to you, or /listened to the wrong Musician, or forgot to type /stoplisten at the end of your performance. This happens more often than people realize.

2. You forgot to target the listener and type /setperform at the beginning of your performance.

3. Your listener recently died, crashed to desktop, timed out, or suffered some other calamity. I've read some reports that recent trauma to the listener may impede the buff, especially if the listener had a Music buff up when the calamity occurred. It may be that the buff drops but that the buff timer fails to reset. I'm reporting this to the devs. In the meantime, if you have trouble buffing someone, ask them about this type of pre-buff calamity.

4. Your listener had some other buff up. In theory, this "stat bug" has been fixed as of the most recent patch, but ask your listener about this if there's a problem buffing.

5. You're in a player-city theater. These are bugged.

6. You're not in a camp, hotel, theater, or cantina.

7. You didn't flourish.

8. You didn't play long enough.

9. You typed /setperform more than once, or changed targets and typed /setperform.

10. Your listener started /listening long after you started playing and typing /setperform. Ideally, your listener should be listening when you start playing, and before you type /setperform.

11. You stopped for a long time in mid-performance.

12. Your listener ran out of range for a moment. Even if he or she returns, the buff trigger may have been pulled, and you must re-buff.

13. You are not a Novice Musician or higher, or your Musical Mind Enhancement skill is zero.

14. You used a song or instrument that is too "low" while performing the targeted buff.

15. The listener was meditating when they typed /stoplisten.

16. The listener left the cantina without typing /stoplisten. Leaving the cantina is supposed to trigger the buff, but it doesn't always.

Q. Sorry, I've tried all the suggestions in the above answer, and I still can't buff.

A. Report this in the Musician forum, and direct your post to the Musician Correspondent. Actually, there's a stickied thread there for reporting bugs with the buff.

A. Actually, the devs have asked the Correspondent to take an active role in monitoring how the buff is working and to report back on bugs and problems. The devs do read the Correspondent's posts in the Correspondent Forum, and they usually respond within a day or two.

I hope this helps. If there are errors in this FAQ, please let me know so I can revise and update it.

Some observations from a Master who has been buffing since even before the patch to the current system of buffage...

>>Q. Isn't the Musician buff less valuable than the Dancer buff?

Depending on the profession, the musician buff is MORE valuable than the dancer buff. The 2 that come directly to mind are medical and Image Design, where an increse in mind means that they can do more functions NOW, but once the mind is gone they have to wait, but an increse in focus and willpower will allow them to function and do the same actions and have it cost less, and regenerate faster. In the long run they can do more!

>>Q. What level of Musician can confer the buff?

>>A. Novice Musician and up. The buff depends on the Mind Enhancement skill.

I'd like to add that the level of Musical Mind Enhancement is a direct value to the % bonus. A Novice musican has a value of 10 in MME, so they will buff and add 10%, if you have Music Tech 4 your MME value is 75...therefore a 75% buff. Masters are 100 for the 100% buff.

Songs, Flourishes, buff times, and stopping.

In my observations I have seen that my buffs are solid double value buffs for 2 hours with these factors...

-I can play ANY song

-I flourish once every 10 seconds

-The Buffie listens for 8 minutes

-I do not stop playing for more than a second or 2, and I try to avoid this at all costs. I have had issues stopping for as little as 5-10 seconds to heal myself. Try not to stop!

A fun fact that should be noted is that, in my experience, the value of the buff is not affected by the listening duration, but only the Buff duration. I have given and received buffs with 15 second listening times that have had full doubling strength, but have only lasted a minute or two. This is often good for the overt character who needs the buff to get out of a scrape, or for someone who just wants it to put on armor.

>>Q. I can't buff! What am I doing wrong?

>>3. Your listener recently died, crashed to desktop, timed out, or suffered some other calamity. I've read >>some reports that recent trauma to the listener may impede the buff, especially if the listener had a Music >>buff up when the calamity occurred. I'm reporting this to the devs. In the meantime, if you have trouble >>buffing someone, ask them about this type of pre-buff calamity.

I have seen this too, and it is my most often form of buff failure, but to add my observations to what I think is happening...

I f someone has recently died, AND they had a music buff when they died, a new buff cannot be applied until the original buff would have expired. I have had players get a buff and die 5 minutes later, and not be able to get buffed for 2 hours more, and I've had players die right at the end of a buff duration time frame wait a few minutes and get buffed again. In this respect, it is very different from the doctor buffs that I, I believe, reset and can be reapplied at death.

Thanks for your comments, Fragpuppie. I'll incorporate them into the FAQ right away. Some comments on your comments:

1. Yes, IMHO, our buff is more valuable than the Dancer buff; I was just trying to be tactful in my FAQ so as not to offend our dancing friends. Maybe I'll change the FAQ to "at least as valuable as, and many would say more valuable than," or some such.

2. I think I agree with your theory about the buff timer: after a death, the buff drops, but the buff timer doesn't always reset. I'm still trying to verify this, though, because it doesn't *always* seem to happen -- some people report being able to rebuff right after dying, even if their previous buff hadn't been up long.

3. Hmm, I have successfully completed the buff even after stopping to switch instruments, etc. At least I think I have; one depends on feedback from the listener to verify this sort of thing. But you may be right that stopping puts the buff at risk. Last night, on Test, I failed to buff a guy, and I may have stopped in mid-song to change instruments. Will test it more, and in the meantime will add your caution to the FAQ.

4. I think you're right about duration of performance affecting duration, not power, of buff only, but I'm not sure. Are you positive? I've had listeners claim that I didn't confer the full double buff on them.

5. A couple of PMs point out that buffs work in houses too -- and, I might add, in PA Halls. These are really private "cantinas," but I'll revise the FAQ to clarify. Along the same lines: has anyone tried buffing in a city hall?

SWGEntertainer.comEmperor Palpatine (from "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith"):"Every single Jedi is now an enemy of the Republic. Do what must be done. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy."-I support ATK people and playstyles.Account cancelled as of June 23, 2005

I have asked the devs about self-buffs several times. The devs don't seem opposed to the idea, but I'm not sure when or if we'll see them. A self-buff for Musicians apparently involves technical hurdles that aren't present for Doctors. I'll add an item on self-buffs to the FAQ, too.

Opinions as to which is worth more are just that. I will say right off that there are needs for both of them, and the better buff depends on what you need it for. If you are going into combat and expect to take mind damage and/or wounds in high volume, then the dance buff IS better. If you need more mind to do that real high level ID function (for some people even Muon doesn't give enough mind for some functions), then the dance buff IS better. However if you are that same image designer and you need to do lots of small ID things quickly ( can we say grinding) the the music buff is better, or if you're a medic that has to do heals or buffs for a mob of people ( like maybe the one standing in the cantina) then music is better. Personally I say...get both, and make a dancer AND a musician happy. Its easy and you can do them both at the same time too.

Regarding the issues of

length of obervation VS duration of buff VS effectiveness of buff

I have not given a partial % buff in a very long time. I cannot remember the last time I didn't give a full % buff other than it was either right before the patch or right after it.

Last night I experimented...using passive buffs, as they are easier to obtain. I listened to a Musician with Tech 1 for maybe a minute, and received an appropriate 20% buff that lasted, maybe 20-25 minutes. I then watched a dancer who, I assume cause she was afk, had dance 4, but not master. The buff was an exact 75% buff, and, even though I only watched for 10-15 seconds, lasted at least 25 minutes (I logged ... couldn't wait for it to expire). Now during this time I was trying to explain passive buffs to the musician I had pulled that 20%er from, and he tried the same thing on the dance buff, but here's what happened to him. 1st he had isssues "watching" the dancer, which we found out seem to be that you cannot receive a dance buff WHILE you are playing music. As we went through this figuring it out he got a partial % buff, maybe 30% in stead of 75%. I think that this is because he didn't "stop" watching, but rather started playing music, which "stopped" the watch function, but not the same way as the /stopwatch command. OK so we thought we had it figured out....and he started watching again, even though he had a partial, however a second thing happened...the dancer he was watching went LD, which again caused him to stop watching her. When this happened his mind went up again, however the amount was weird. His mind went up to like a 55% buff,not the 75% that was the potential. Again I believe that this is due to unconventional stoppage, i.e. the LD.

Now all I need is more entertainers to group with, my trusetd buff stopwatch, and for people to stop asking me for buffs while I try to run these experiments.

Fragpuppie Uber

Master Musican, Master Entertainer

Bandleader-Booking Agent for Frag's Puppies

President & CEO, Fragpuppie Enterprises & Uber Instruments

Coronet, Corellia, Chilastra

ps I needed these good experiments, as I had had LOUSY luck in my other profession, Architect. I had 2 critical failures...IN A ROW...ON FINAL BUILDS!!!!...FOR MEDIUM HOUSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nice to know that a 14.94 crafting tool in front of a 43.63 Station has such a high failure rate. Though I will say...I had NO experimentation fails or component build fails on those first 2. I failed on only 1 experimentation, and one component construct on house #3, and it took...go figure. Pity I was already locked into a price.

I have never use flourishes for my individual buffs, and I do not see any impact on my buffs. That is, I just play a song, ask the person to listen (/listen jeriba), type /setp <playername> (a good way to buff if you are playing an instrument that must be targeted), and then press my alarm macro (/addalarm 0 8 buff is finished). After the patch, I asked the first dozen or so players to let me know when the buff wore off. My results have been the buff lasts for two hours and doubles focus and willpower. Can anyone duplicate or otherwise confirm the importance of using flourishes while buffing?

Jeriba Shigan
Master Musician, Sunrunner
My holocron told me "All your base are belong to us"
--------
Enemies because they were taught to be. Allies because they had to be. Brothers because they dared to be.

2. The passive buff on one or more targets. If you want to buff multiple people, you can group with them and have them all /listen while you perform. You don't need to use /setperform. The upside is that multiple people can get the buff from you at the same time. The downside is that the buff is less efficient -- you have to play for 20 minutes or longer to get the two-hour buff.

I have used this passive buff quite a lot at guild raids, and 7min bufftime is enough for 1½h buff (last 1h 37min after /stoplisten). Playing virtaul/jazz/ballad (depends my mood), and 2 flourish every 10 seconds, some fireyet etc time to time (to burn action points, and medexp for doc).

Thanks for your post, Zernia. I might amend the FAQ to say 'may' have to play for twenty minutes to get the full two-hour buff. Does your passive buff ever last longer than 90 minutes when you play for just 8 minutes? My passive buff doesn't seem to last as long as yours.

As for the importance of flourishing: I too have been able to buff without flourishing, but I do it so rarely (I can't stand *not* flourishing) that I can't say I've tested it thoroughly. I might amend the FAQ to say that you 'may' have to flourish to optimize the buffs, but I don't think I'll say you "don't" have to flourish. The devs have told me that, in theory, flourishing matters. At least I think they told me that.

In the hardcopy manual that was in the game box it says that flourishing increases heals. Can anyone confirm that flourishes have an effect on healing? I'm just a bit curious.

Jeriba Shigan
Master Musician, Sunrunner
My holocron told me "All your base are belong to us"
--------
Enemies because they were taught to be. Allies because they had to be. Brothers because they dared to be.

I have given 10 buffs in the last 24 hours.. No passive buff's, all /setp buff's.. Once the preliminary "oops, i wasn't listening" stuff was out of the way, I gave buff's that lasted from 1 hour 41 minutes to 2 hours 24 minutes. I play jazz, vir, waltz and SW3 during the buff. I have my macro set that it takes 2 minutes to recycle, so I swap songs each time the ventriloquism message passes by. The players who were not wearing any type of armor while receiving the buff all had the longer buff times, and players wearing assortments of armor got the shorter times. I only do buffs with the mandolin or the horn, I hate having the performance stopped due to the dumb targetting thing with the ommnibox or the narg.. (I would prefer an accordian then the organ, and a bass guitar over the ommni, those instruments are horrible with constantly stopping playing..)

Questions:

1) do the lighting effects have anything to do with the buff duration? If not, why don't they? They come from the same skill line as the bonus to the buff, it stands to reason they are needed to make the buff better. You dont get weapon bonuses in the skill tree line that are meaningless, why should these be any different?

2) Does the effectiveness of the instrument have any bearing on the buff, or anything in general? If not, how come? A 88% effective fanfair should give a better buff then a 3% nargolon, shouldn't it? The quality of materials in the values of important matters in any other profession, why not here as well? This is really the only area effectiveness in an instrument should matter, otherwise drop the complexity of the instruments down to where you do not need a special crafting tool to create them, it is just wasted code otherwise..

Morganite, those are both good questions. I don't know, but my guess is that neither effects nor instrument quality affect the buff at all. But I'm not sure, so I plan to submit your questions, and others raised in this thread, to the devs so that I can fill in the blanks in my FAQ.

Yep, it make sense to me that effects and instrument quality would have an effect on the buff. Right now instrument quality plays no role at all in the game; it would be nice if it did. Since it's unlikely that instrument quality will ever affect the quality of our music itself, it'd make sense that instruments at least affect heals or buffs or both.

I would LOVE to see instrument quality have some meaning. Perhaps not just with buffs, but also with "specials" drain, like the action costs of flourishes and lighting effects. This idea seems to be popular in the top issue thread.

Jeriba Shigan
Master Musician, Sunrunner
My holocron told me "All your base are belong to us"
--------
Enemies because they were taught to be. Allies because they had to be. Brothers because they dared to be.